This October, Baboro International Arts Festival for Children resumed its longstanding Festival Mentoring programme for the first time since 2019. The programme, which is designed for artists with a passion for and curiosity about making work for children and young people, took a brief hiatus in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Festival Mentoring returned to strength this year as Baboró resumed fully in-person festival activities.
Four artists attended the 26th annual Baboró festival as mentees, navigating the programme with seasoned mentors Phil Kingston (Community and Education Manager, Abbey Theatre) and Maria Fleming (CEO, First Fortnight). Together, participants saw a selection of performances, exhibitions, and industry panel discussions and got a chance to chat with programmed artists and international delegates.
Below, we are delighted to introduce the 2022 Festival Mentees. Thank you for joining us and we can’t wait to see what you do next!
Martina Carey
Martina is currently a member of Druid Theatre’s Fuel Residency Program. She has worked professionally with RTE Jr on a variety of shows such as "Twigin" and "The Curious World of Professor Fun and Dr Dull" as a Creative Artist in both Performance and Production and as a Drama Facilitator with the Gaiety School of Acting on their Outreach events and Youth Drama Programming.
Martina holds a BA HONS Degree in Drama / ALCM/ Drama Facilitator trained with NAYD
Emma Coen
Emma Coen is a producer based in Mayo, working between there and Dublin. Emma’s work as a producer has mainly been in theatre and visual art, and is generally multidisciplinary and collaborative. Emma is currently working with Pan Pan and United Fall, with a focus on international touring. In the past she has worked as a producer with field:arts, Collapsing Horse and the Gate theatre, and as a stage manager with Ireland’s leading theatre companies.
Alex Gogan
Alexandra Gogan is a Romanian writer based in Dublin with a background in theatre and the performing arts. Her experience working with young audiences ranges from humble beginnings as a Disney Princess impersonator to actor in children’s plays, workshop facilitator and co-founder and creator of “Bibabo”- an independent theatre company in Bucharest, Romania - that aimed to produce quality art experiences for children in kindergarten and primary school.
Currently, she's working on developing two stories: ‘’A man, a dog and a goose’’ and ‘’Mister Tonohashi and The Missing Cat’’, the first in a series called ‘’The Thomas Thorne Files’’.
HK Ní Shioradáin
HK Ní Shioradáin is a multidisciplinary artist from Dublin. They compose music for film and theatre, and are a bilingual spoken word poet, performing in Irish and English. They have a BA in English Literature and Film, and a degree in Music Composition for Games. Recent accolades include Axis Assemble, Céadlínte Éigse Éireann/Poetry Ireland’s Introductions 2022, and the Máire Mac an tSaoi Award for their poetry. They love exploring all things queer and disability in their work.
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